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LeeT5's V70R Project

Well i thought I'd update you all in the last few months to some of the things I've been up to. Purchased myself some of these (when a friend of mine visited the states, saved me a fortune on import fee's)

Fitted:

Also (as you know) removed my Eibachs and had brand new OE springs fitted and also had the important rear bushes replaced with Powerflex:

#5, 6, 7 and 10 were replaced.

No 10:

No 6:

No7 + New Road springs:

Then it was off to Elite, Rainham, Essex to have four wheel alignment checked, the results:

Nice write up. Nice to see the powerflex diagrams related to real pictures!
Out of interest, is the camber at the rear intentional? Or is it just that they couldn't get it back into tolerance? How have the powerflex rear bushes changes things? Stiffer? Sharper? More road noise?

.....Then i thought I'd out the old high beam halogens for some extra bright ones. Don't get me wrong, there never going to be HID brightness, but a subtle improvement has been noticed

Before:

After:

Then i outed the front fog light grille's and fitted the later 05> versions:

drove down to my local stealer and purchased........

Then I removed my tired, worn fronts seats that had done 130k and replaced them with two newish front seats that have done only 40k. Used the Volvo leather treatment and it works a treat. The results are gorgeous! Some portions of the seats still have that grainy new leather look.

looking good lee. how did the solid front mount change the ride and viabration in the cabin can be much more you can do to that motor of yours. loving the plate. never noticed it befor

I must point out i did have Powerflex bushes on the strut, but these improve it no end! First thing i noticed was the steering felt more positive, sharper. There is a noticeable feel of the road through the steering but it's not unpleasant. A definite improvement!

Originally Posted by JimmyBurnWorld

Nice write up. Nice to see the powerflex diagrams related to real pictures!
Out of interest, is the camber at the rear intentional? Or is it just that they couldn't get it back into tolerance? How have the powerflex rear bushes changes things? Stiffer? Sharper? More road noise?

The camber, as you all know, on the rear of a P2 is NOT adjustable by default. I did think that fitting normal (when i say normal, i mean, Not the IPD adjustable ones) bushes would bring it right back into spec but having spoke with the alignment guys and a couple of techs it would appear the newer, stiffer Powerflex bushes are not allowing the car to settle and therefore the camber spec i have now, is what the car is stuck with. If i removed ALL the P/F bushes and fitted OE then the spec would be within Volvo spec because the bushes are that much softer they allow the car to settle more.

Please also bear in mind that i had a full tank of fuel at the time. Had the tank been nearly empty then the results would have been within spec.

I will point out one more thing. Although, on paper, the camber looks bad; it's not! In fact, were only talking less than half of 1 degree to be within spec. Honestly, that's really nothing to be concerned about. Having done a couple of thousand miles since then, i can report no excess wear on the rear tyres. It is constantly monitored and will be addressed if it becomes an issue.

The important thing to note is that i wanted -0.02 front and parallel rear. I think they did mightily well in achieving my goal with a total steer ahead of 0.00 too!!!

A friend of mine drove my car a few weeks ago and the first thing he said was..."Blimey, your steering is spot on!"
I rest my case.

Looking good as always.
The fog light grill are for the cars with auto boxes as you can get a transmission oil cooler that fit behind the N/S grill,but they were fitted to the R cars 2003> it looks like what grills the factory had at the time were fitted.
I changed my grills to vented ones when I fitted the IPD vent kit. And my car is a auto.

Lee looking at the rear bush photos ,looks like the black powerflex ones do you think they are a bit to hard to allow the rear to move to get the settings you were after ?.

No mate. I don't want the rear to move! At all!!

I'm happy with the setup. Just gotta tweak it a little to try and smooth out the side hop. Had next to none when it was lowered.
Trade off i suppose, at least i get a more comfy ride. Not being funny but Comfort is still very firm. It just doesn't jitter about like it used to with the eibachs.

Looking good as always.
The fog light grill are for the cars with auto boxes as you can get a transmission oil cooler that fit behind the N/S grill,but they were fitted to the R cars 2003> it looks like what grills the factory had at the time were fitted.
I changed my grills to vented ones when I fitted the IPD vent kit. And my car is a auto.